Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini is best known for his first novel, The Kite Runner. At left, he’s pointing out that the region of the world from which he hails has had a longstanding opposition to educating women, and has paid a terrible price for it. The public education system here in the United States has little or no such bias against women when it comes to education.  The children of families with minimal parental involvement in their kids’ schooling are very likely to be dullards, regardless of their sex.   ..read more

SDI, a SCHOOL OF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY says: Sonoran Desert Institute is an online school that helps students learn the skills and techniques they’ll need to be successful in the firearms …. industry. Gunsmiths addressed an unmet need in the 18th Century, just as the market for swordsmiths was strong a few hundred years earlier. But now that there are 13.4 million guns made annually in the U.S. alone, each factory-manufactured with amazing precision, it’s unclear how one could get ahead in this career space. That said, let’s be honest and admit this: some people have a love of weapons; guns offe ..read more

In January of 1970, our 10th grade English teacher read the class 12 short pieces of advice that were part of a calendar, one for each month of the year.  The advice pertained not how to be healthy or how to live a rich, honest, rewarding life, but how to be cool.  The last line of each monthly suggestion was the same: “Eat plenty of burgers.” As the cartoonist whose work appears here has observed, Americans may have limited appetite for Plato and Socrates, but we can’t get enough cheap junk in our lives ..read more

We’ve all seen the comments of the QAnon-style conspiracy theorists like the fellow at the left.  Are there powerful and rich people, perhaps Bill Gates among them, who are trying to enslave us? Here are the remarks of a reader who doesn’t think so: Ummm. “They” have to extract, refine, transport, and then sell you gas. It can be “Turned off” just as easily as electricity. It’s not something anyone makes themselves. And actually, if you have solar panels or other simple generators like a water wheel or windmill, you can make electricity at home without anyone’s help. You will never be abl ..read more

The piece at left comes from legendary environmentalist Paul Hawken. The way I simplify this in my own mind is as follows: We (progressives) have the people; they have the money. The vast majority of people on this planet understand that our scientists are begging us to make wholesale changes in the way we live, in particular, in the way we consume resources.   A minority of extremely wealthy people probably understand this too, but simply don’t care, because of the intense level of comfort they enjoy.       ..read more

Below is a video from an ultra-right-wing fellow who favors Trump in 2024, based on the concept that Trump loves America, and all who oppose him hate our country. This is the type of infantile thinking that must prevail in order for Trump to be re-elected.  No proof, no nuance.  No discussion of the point that progressives would like to see the same style of government that is found in the rest of the developed world, and certainly no mention of the fact that Trump is a sociopathic criminal, facing 91 felony counts ..read more

It could be said that what America is engaging in now is a giant test for what could be called our “boob appetite.” How much stupidity is too much when it comes to a presidential candidate? Is there, in fact, an upper limit? We’ll find out in November ..read more

The video below shows the largest “calving event” (a piece of a glacier breaking off and becoming an iceberg) ever recorded.  It’s the size of Manhattan, but 2 – 3 times taller than the actual New York City buildings. The frightening part of all this is that the glacier is now retreating 10 times faster than it was throughout the 20th Century ..read more

At left is essentially what I believe about the media coverage of the presidential election campaign. When you think about it, the money associated with making this look like a tight contest is so large as to be virtually uncountable, and it will keep rolling in unless the media tells the truth, i.e., that American voters have little appetite for a criminal sociopath back in the White House. The only edit I would make to this guy’s pitch comes near the bottom.  Yes, “Trump is insane,” but he’s also a career criminal.   ..read more

Wildlife crossings like the one shown here are common in many parts of the world. Here in California, we’re just about to get one on the 101 Freeway a bit north of Los Angeles. Better late than never, of course, but obviously, they’re cheaper and easier to construct when the road itself is originally put in ..read more